ANy Bird watches out there?

hello.
as i feed my chickens i also feed my wild birds. i have a section thats near my kitchen window and table. and i watch birdies eat from the 3 hung feeders i have. its wonderful just watching them. i know am using hubbys orion binoculars!! and what a sight to see. i have a lovely blue jay family and once in a while i get the cardinal come by for some food. i have doves and finches too. i have these black birds. not sure what they are tho. they are def not crows. we have the crows but they dont come to the feeders. already since winter has begun i have gone thru 6 bags of bird food. i just love watching them. id love to know i am not the only bird beginner watcher here on byc. lol

I LOVE birds! I just took a bunch of pictures of birds visiting my feeders last weekend. We have a lot of Dark-Eye Juncos, lots of lots of Goldfinches. Cardinals are a little shy and prefer to watch from a tree nearby. But I was lucky to capture a Titmouse and a Woodpecker.

I feed the birds when I let my chickens out in the morning and I love to watch the birds. Evidently I'm on a flight path for migration because every year starting in November, I get to see birds that don't normally live here. The robins passed through a couple weeks ago which I think is a little early for them, and there wasn't many. This year I saw a lot of what I can only imagine are some sort of finches. They are mostly brown with a few showing some yellow/greenish color on their breasts. Very sweet, tiny things that peep peep peep. Sadly they seem to have moved on as I haven't seen any this week.

I spy on my wild flock with a pair Nikon binoculars. I have crows, wrens, robins, bluebirds and doves, grackles, cedar waxwings, killdeer, cardinals, and a redtail hawk who eyes my fat doves but has not managed to snatch one yet!

At my other house I had a raven come visit me a few times a year. Oddly, he grazed peacefully with the other birds, and rarely used his giant beak to put one in place. He had a lovely greenish sheen to his black feathers and thought he was magnificent. So did I! He'd strut among his smaller cousins while they ate like he was their king.

I honestly think he came to steal the junk my hubby kept tossing on the ground. This black Avian had a penchant for various nuts and bolts scattered among the gravel and was an excellent watch-bird. Although he was a thief at heart, he did not like cats trying to steal a feathered meal while he was around. As soon as a cat was caught stalking, he went into action. With a low purring noise he attacked. His beak became his sword and his wings became his fists. He'd slash and stab with incredible accuracy and a the cats departed with serious eye injuries.

Quote:Thanks annie. I was very excited to get them captured like that. I have the feeders about 3 feet from the window and wasn't sure if they would come so close. I'm still waiting for a lady cardinal to pose for me.

Here in the desert of southern New Mexico I have been able to observe a lot of interesting birds I had never seen before. My favorite just because they are interesting and comical are the road runners. Besides that we have on a regular basis quail, woodpeckers, nuthatches, finches, waxwings, and vast numbers of hummingbirds migrate through. Up in the mountains we have wild turkeys.

My least favorite birds are the hawks though I think they are stunningly beautiful. This year we have had a pigeon hawk who has taken to sitting in a tree picking off the occasional pigeon who comes to scavenge feed from the chicken runs. I don't mind her staying around as she is too small to harm any of my hens and scares off the pigeon pests.

One time, shortly after we moved here in 2004, we saw a heron or crane fly overhead and we thought it must have gotten blown off course and was lost or something. It turns out we must be part of a migratory path, as friends of ours had a recurrent visitor who stopped by for a couple of years to eat fish out of their koi pond each year!